WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT THIS SUMMER?

 

One of my favorite quotes was sent to me rather anonymously many years ago from England.  “Great teaching does not come from years of doing it.  Great teaching comes from years of thinking about it.” 

Unfortunately, during the school year, we are often so busy with students, writing, research, lesson plans, committee assignments, advising, and the like that we never have the time to sit and think deeply about our teaching.

Now, though, it is summer, a time for serious reflection.  I measure my summer from around May 1 (around the end of the spring semester) to September 1 (around the beginning of the fall semester).  With that calendar, July 1 (today, as I write) means that summer is half over.  Time is slipping away.  So, how much thinking have you done about your teaching?  The summer is half over.  As I tell my students endlessly, procrastination is always everyone’s biggest enemy.

When I go out (prior to the pandemic) and talk with faculty around the country, I describe summertime thinking to them.  Interestingly, there is often a mystery as to, “What exactly do I think about?”  That is a reasonable question.  Let me provide you with a little thinking assignment.  Maybe it will push your thinking forward for the rest of the summer.

Last week, I was exercising (at my age, I need a lot of exercise) and my wife came running in exclaiming, “You are going to love the quote that I found in the book I am reading.”  And, she (as always) was 100 percent correct.

The author is Ann Patchett and the book contains a group of essays titled (interestingly enough) This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage.   Here are the words that caught my wife’s attention.  And, notice, they are from the student’s perspective rather than from that of the teacher.

“There are two kinds of educational experience you can have in college.  One is passive and one is active.  In the first, you are a little bird in the nest with your beak stretched open wide, and the professor gathers up all the information you need and drops it down your gullet.  You may feel good about this—after all, you are passionately waiting for this information—but your only role is to accept what you are given.  To memorize facts and later repeat them for a test might get you a good grade, but it’s not the same thing as having intellectual curiosity.  In the second kind, you are taught to learn how to find the information, and how to think about it, for yourself.  You learn how to question and to engage.  You realize that one answer is not enough and that you have to look at as many sources as are available to you so that you can piece together a larger picture.”

I am on sabbatical in the fall so I will not be teaching.  If I were, I would immediately email this paragraph to all of my fall students with a challenge, “I hope you want the second kind of educational experience because I want that for you.  It will take work on your part and work on my part but if we both try, this can be the greatest educational experience of your life.  I promise you that.” 

          I want my students to know that I am shooting for something well beyond passive learning.  I want them to come to class on the first day with the expectation that I am going to offer them more than treating them like a bunch of baby birds, too weak to feed themselves. 

And, yes, before you ask, I do have students who immediately drop out of my class in fear that I will expect them to think and that is just incredibly scary to them.   They’ll go looking for a momma bird where they can memorize and get that beloved A. 

Okay, to push your thinking, let me pose some questions for you to ponder.  I will include some of my own thoughts where I have them. 

(1) – Do you agree with her general description of the college educational experience? 

          I suspect most teachers are okay with this description.  We can certainly spend time dividing these two experiences into more subdivisions, but I am not sure that adds any benefit to our thinking.

(2) – For the author, what are the key words in this paragraph? 

          I would bet that if you ask Ann Patchett she would say that the key words are “intellectual curiosity.”  She never says explicitly but I think she obviously prefers the second kind of experience based on the development of the student’s intellectual curiosity.  That seems to be what she thinks students should want.

(3) – If you gave your students a secret ballot, which of these two experiences would they sign up for in their college classes?

          I teach at what I believe is an excellent university, but I am surprised by how many students come in from middle school and high school having been trained (almost religiously) in the “down your gullet” form of education.  People prefer experiences that are familiar.  Most, but certainly not all students, have an affection for this “conveyance of information” model.  Many students (possibly including myself at 18) would sign up for nothing but “down the gullet” classes even if they knew (a) they would be bored to death and (b) learn little.  I think it is a role of colleges to protect students from themselves.  Students should not live in fear of having their thinking challenged.  They should demand that.

(4) – If you were designing a perfect course structure for yourself (not your colleagues but you), how much of your class time would be “down your gullet” information conveyance and how much would be pushing students toward intellectual curiosity?

          In a perfect class, whatever that means, I would never convey information directly.  I would just prod the students to figure the stuff out for themselves.  We do not live in a perfect world but it is fun to dream.

(5) – If you surveyed your students, how much of your class time would they say was “down your gullet” teaching? 

Teachers are not always the most unbiased evaluators of their own teaching.  I think that holds us all back.  We see ourselves through our own hopes and doubts.   Thus, I am interested in what students believe they are seeing.  Would your students say you convey information 40 percent of the time and push intellectual curiosity 60 percent of the time or what?  That is something to think about.

(6) – Take your answer from (5) and assume it is reasonably accurate.  How would you like to see those percentages change over the next academic year?  Now is the time to do the thinking to make that happen.

Remember that in (4), you have indicated a perfect course division.   That should be a guideline.  Are you satisfied with how your class is divided between information conveyance and intellectual curiosity?

(7) – Okay, here is the question that is really at the heart of this essay.  Let’s assume that you want to have less of a “down your gullet” style of class and more intellectual curiosity.  I think that is a reasonable summer goal.  As you think about teaching during the remainder of the summer, what might you do to help make this change in your class structure during the 2021-22 academic year?

          Everyone must answer this question in his or her own particular way.  Teaching Shakespeare and teaching biology have things in common but there are quite a number of obvious differences.  Nevertheless, my answer to this question has become a type of personal litany:  (1) stress preparation prior to the class experience and (2) ask more questions, especially questions that really do not have easy answers. 

I am convinced that I can make any class at any university appreciably better simply by convincing the students to work harder before they show up for class.  What kind of logical and interesting assignments can you develop that will encourage students to do the work necessary prior to entering into the class discussion?  You can approach class preparation with a whip or with a carrot.  What kind of carrot can you provide that will entice the students to overcome their natural procrastination and do the work.  Just making an assignment is not enough.  You have to convince the students to do it.

And, as Socrates must have figured out, asking questions can be the driving force behind developing intellectual curiosity.  What is happening here?  Is it a moral action or not?  What would you do in this situation?  If you spend time thinking, every grain of sand can prompt an infinite number of fascinating questions.

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The summer is half over.  I hope you make great use of the first half.  Now, go out and make even better use of the second.  When the fall semester begins, you want to be ready for your greatest semester ever.